Let's talk about awesome people: The Athens moto crew
Googled "motorcycle gear athens greece" a few weeks ago. Just 72 hours later, I was riding around a pier south of Athens, with a drone following overhead and a young female Grecian reporter on the back of the bike, interviewing me for Zougla, Greece's leading online news media site.
The search engine had returned a bunch of results, naturally, but I only remember seeing one---Motofashion---and deciding to drop in for some plastic cleaner and a jacket for Marcela. After doing the same online search while writing this post, I see the options for stores is endless, and you could throw a rock from Motofashion and hit 10 other cycle stores, but I didn't realize that at the time. Some call this..."destiny." Perusing the store, I tried to shrug off the staff, as friendly as they were, because I didn't feel like dealing with language barriers that day. Then I realized they both spoke great English. Lovely--I'd not spoken to a person live in days. I talked with Christos, who owned the place, and Tasos, the sales manager, about riding in Greece. Then we started cranking up my videos on youtube and they were really interested in my round-the-world journey.
Two days later, I was back at Motofashion. Christos appeared almost as excited about the trip as I was at the moment. "We all want to do that...you're doing it, man. When I realized how cool this is, I knew we had to capture it for others to hear." We sat, sipping iced coffee, chatting about riding. Christos is a renaissance man, scrappy and successful business leader, unrivaled comedian with wit and charm, and George Clooney stunt and nude body double. If you forget any of these great traits, he'll remind you in the next 10 minutes, armed with a smile. His youtube antics are quite popular, and he busted out a few of his greatest hits. Costas joined us. He had also appeared in youtube videos while not running the company's IT systems. Quite the opposite of Christos, Costas has a calm, quiet demeanor, but yet still manages to command just as much presence. Stavroula, one of Zougla's up-and-coming reporters, tried to keep Christos in check while we prepped for the interview, but his energy almost can't be contained.
Of course, the afternoon was a blast, with Nikos behind the camera, Christos manning (and crashing) the drone, Stavroula running the show, and Costas and Marcela providing adult supervision.
After the filming, Nikos (other long-haired guy on the right) took off to do more work (it was a Sunday, too!), and the rest of the Greek crew took us out to enjoy a locals-only restaurant. Just a few blocks from the tourist mecca of Monastiraki Flea Market, we still were the only foreigners around. It was amazing. We spent the afternoon learning of Greek middle-class challenges, the evolution of Greek's nationalistic pride, and of course, motorcycles. Somehow each conversation still had a few interjections about Christos' dashing looks or world-class humor.
Costas explained how motorcycling has been a way of life for him, as it's just more cost-effective and convenient. The ability to split lanes and bypass city traffic makes it twice as fast as driving a car in the city. He'd had many types of bikes in the past and seemed to care about more than just the convenience. I asked Christos why he rides. "When I drive the car, I just move me from one place to the other. When I ride a bike, it is much more than the need to arrive to the destination. It is more about the journey. After all, this is why we say I 'ride' a bike and 'drive' a car."
The interview turned out great and has been helping bring others along on the Expedition, which I greatly appreciate. Greece is amazing, as the pictures will testify,but this crew really made the experience so much more.
Christos and I are already planning another moto tour around Greece...who's coming with us?
